"What this power is I cannot say; all I know
is that it exists
and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of
mind
in which he knows exactly what he wants
and is fully determined not to quit
until he finds it."
--Alexander Graham Bell

The gnuEASY aims to show a very easy-to-design paraglider. Has only
2x11 cells. All the suspension lines (all!) have the same length: 410 cm.
The
lower panels are parallel-sided (many of them absolutely rectangular). The
upper panels are tapered correspondingly, but many are the same.

What makes a qualified safe hang glider pilot? There are about ten
characteristics that lead to an independent, self reliant, and safe
pilot. I won't go over all them. Sure, money is a big factor. The
average price of instruction at high volume schools is $1500. It
takes lots of personal attention, in fact, an average of 81 hours of
instruction to make a basically-skilled pilot. That is 20 hours
more instruction than the average private pilot student. Time is money
and so is glider and vehicle maintenance, fuel costs, being on
retainer for the right conditions, promotional effort. But this is
just limiting factor not a requirement.

So, why is it that it does take so much more instruction than other
forms of aviation? The main reason is sensitivity to the variability
of conditions and relationship of glider to body. In hang gliding YOU
are the aircraft. In general aviation; avionics, wheels, engines, air
traffic control, unvarying runways, leveraged control surfaces are
mental and physical assists for flight. All these allow anyone that
can move a stick to pilot an airplane, given the additional emotional
and critical thinking skills required. In hang gliding, one weighs three
times heavier than the wing. That means you have three times the
resting inertia of the glider. Hooking into a hang glider is more like
putting on a shoe or getting on a skateboard then getting into a
"vehicle".

Therefore, hang gliding is largely an athletic skill that must be
married to the ability to disassociate emotions from performance and
the intensification of the ability to analyze - that many people
take some time to realize. The situation of hang gliding does
not give damn about your schedule, cultural customs outside of the
requirements. If the surf is up, the surf is up - if the situation
warrants a certain kind of flight opportunity or a lesson then you
must go! Even the most talented, self assured people get shocked and
humbled by this fact. The most important factor is the ability to take
what nature allows and decision to bend one's lifestyle to the flying
environment. This is why we have many students that do fine with
supervision, assistance and set-up of "ideal" flying conditions - and
the fortune of having an situation of unvarying schedules based on
consistent
conditions. But, when these students are met with the unstructured
environment of the full lifestyle, they find out the are not willing
or able of make their lifestyle's comply.

So, the main lesson of hang gliding is humility - compliance to what nature
affords us. This is the real reason why hang gliding is so unpopular (and what
makes avid independent pilots so special). They are able to adapt to the
extreme and sensitive variability of the flying environment. And
because of that fact, they become skilled beyond the ideal training
situations. Most of us prefer more control whether it be through
culture, machines, or preferred situations.

I'm sure I will receive many emails from currently avid ex-students
and other pilots around the country re-affirming this simple fact -
almost no one is a prodigy at free flight. It forces us to see
ourselves as we really are - physically, emotionally, technically. It
only asks for average ability in all these areas. But most us depend
on one or two at most to solve life's problems. We tend to stick to
jobs and situations that maximize those abilities and rationalize and
project when we are tested against the disowned part of ourselves. The
job of a hang gliding instructor is to help a student find the limits
of those abilities, so that the student can factor that in operating
limitations of future flight plans.

Recently, a Hang III pilot from the east coast, largely a Appalachia
mountain pilot, took a launch and landing clinic. Her original intent
was to have a mountain flight or soaring dune flight - being an awed
visitor to Oregon. But conditions were very ambiguous. I told her on
the phone it was a 50/50 shot that all her driving was going to amount
to a soaring flight. She was also concerned about being back in
Portland by the early evening because husband and friends were
expecting her. I let her flip the coin. She completely understood the
situation and surrendered to it. She immediately started to
rationalize ways in which she maximize the situation to something
worthwhile and pleasurable. When she arrived at the dune, conditions
were very light. I had a couple other ladies taking introductory
lessons and she found the ground school presentation very instructive
- who knew!

She realized she was still a learning pilot. I sensed a whole shift in
her, from wanting a recreational flight to wanting to interact with the
teaching material. We went over the most recent hand/arm/grip launch
configurations; she flew both the trainer Condor and Falcon 170
re-training herself; we did a couple cliff launches and discussed
technique and communication protocol. The wind switched from WNW to SW
in five minutes. She took the challenge of flying channeling air flow
around the south side dunes in the more turbulent back side. She was
having a grand time and did spectacularly. The south side is a real
test of pilot skill. She really inspired the other ladies. In fact,
she was having such a good time, that she conveniently forgot about
her social obligations - or at least bent them to her priorities with
a cell phone call. Flying trumped the larger culture for her.

That is what makes a true and successful hang glider pilot,
willingness to be - dare I say - irresponsible to the culture that
does not particularly support the hang gliding lifestyle and
willingness do what it takes to get the skills.
--

Paramontante developments
from Juan Salvadori and Pere
Casellas. See above video that shows May 24, 2009, or May 25th (there
was a session of no-wind inflation, and then a session in positive
wind; we are seeking clarification on the dates. ), testing. See
May2009
LIFT and
April2009LIFT for fuller story. ==>Participate in Q&A Paramontante.

Editorial: The beginnings in 2000
on Paramontante obtained some ridicule similar to that
experienced by the Lilienthal brothers. Also similarly, Juan
Salvadori persevered in his vision. Pere Casellas considered carefully
his own experiences and ideas and saw that he could innovate in
collaboration with Juan.

Nations and oceans apart through e-mail, video conferencing, mailings, and
telephone calls, a design team was born to further the Paramontante
and its control systems and evolving detail design. The status
as of the end of May 2009 is a confirmation that the direction is
viable. From here forward
is a huge task of exploring adjustments of measures to find
balance and safety; as designing and refinement will take time,
patience, scientific testing, extreme testing, and more. There
will be considerable investments made.

Parachutes were found. Then Jalbert gave some
directional gores to the parachute. Francis Rogallo found the fully
limp wing in its most simple format. Then Domina Jalbert found the
fully limp ram-air robust airfoil wing. Then Dave Barish found
single-surface limp sailwing parachuting foot-launch off airship terra
firma hills. The rush of gliding parachutes transformed sky-diving.
The double-surface limp Jalbert parafoil kissed the activity of
gliding off terra firma to fill and advance the space Barish thrusted.
The limp world of power kiting-jumping-gliding and paragliding as true
subsets of the broad reaching superset of mechanical hang gliding has
been forming a bifurcating robust subset of hang gliding to the extent
that participants are fairly comfortable naming clubs "hang gliding
and paragliding" entities to distinguish boned-fairly-stiff hang
gliders from the fully limp sort. The romance of the
invention of the fully limp Jalbert parafoil and the fully limp
parawing of Rogallo form a branch of gliding that keeps advancing in
refinement and performance; indeed applications continue to be found
for the fully limp wings; that will continue. The
experience of hang gliding with paragliders is with strong differences
from experiences with robustly boned hang gliders; many pilots choose
to enter both flight spaces for varied reasons and conditions.
Yet, hang gliding is still in a kind of infancy relative to what the
future will hold. Advances and new structures and experiences await
us. Modern materials will marry design advances to supply
solutions to desires for safety, capability, and varied applications.

Boning the fully limp? In the
finding of the fully limp Rogallo wing, Francis Rogallo was joyous; he
already knew that boned flex sails flew; he had kites of many boned
sorts; the fully limp was special and deeply
inventive. In the late 1950s Rogallo
demonstrated the fully limp hang glider to NASA that he already
patented in late 1948; NASA played some with
such; Barish pointedly played also; but at the similar time in late
50s and 1960, NASA boned that limp wing from slight to full using
hardened airbeams and also the aluminum tubes we know so well, even to
full solid lifting body. The Ryan Aeronautical boned-limp was using a
wing that at those moments was dubbed (not limp parawing, but boned
"paraglider"....which term morphed in later years back to the full
limp in the sport world of paragliding ---so be careful with the term
"paraglider" ....know decade of use. The boning of the
limp Rogallo Wing was done with inflated bones, aluminum-tube
bones, ram-air bones. From 1960--boned-Rogallo-Wing devices
came the foot-launch Barry Hill Palmer hang gliders and the Paresev
towed-to-release hang gliders and the towed Burns SkiPlane kite-glider.
Yet boned
flex wings flew in the first decade of 1900s; and even the hang glider
triangle control bar was extant in--at least--1908, to be resurfaced
many times over by the end of 1962. Rogallo gave impetus to
modern hang gliding; Volmer Jensen was in modern hang gliding. The boning of the found limp
wing was--in a mechanical way--a step back in time
to revisiting what had been; the extreme studies
done over the limp Rogallo Wing and its boning versions by NASA sparked
attention and trials that seeded a blossoming use of both limp and
stiffened Rogallo parawings. The urgings of Francis Rogallo from 1948
yearly through 1960 gave energy and evidence and pathway to
modern hang gliding and hang gliders in simple form as was done in the
first decade of 1900s' flex wings and battened flex wings.

The lift/drag of the fully
limp Jalbert parafoil was so starkly superior to lift/drag of the
Rogallo limp parawing that a romance--deserved--exploded for
the parafoil. The boning of the Jalbert parafoil has
received only a light touch by history so far. But there are niche
uses of the parafoil where boning is tempted. Indeed Juan Salvadori in
2000 erupted from such temptation and for various reasons. Foot-launching to fly changing and gusting winds in the
paragliding sector knows wing collapses and contortions that are
unwanted by some; advances of training and design, and wise practice with
active piloting avoids injuries and fatalities related to
partial or full collapses of fully limp wings; yet their are those
aiming to so bone and perhaps hybridly mast the parafoil wing to avoid
collapses and folds during gust events; so design exploration
continues.

A
second large dimension to the temptation to bone the parafoil
for para-hang gliding is the pull for a wider window of safe-flight
opportunity and a higher performance for certain practices.
So, boning the parafoil is now strongly being explored; many lessons
will arrive in the coming five years.
Boning is one change, but
masting is another. These introductions alter the operational and
flight dynamics to be respected in themselves. Woopy Fly is
only a cousin to all these matters---but a distant cousin.
Paramontante lives in the overarching family of "hang gliders" where
also live paragliders.
But the Paramontante evolutes seem to be forming a special new class
of "para-hang" hang gliders. Paramontante is a boned
parafoil mounted on a mast and has a control system that combines
masting dynamics, control-frame dynamics and tether dynamics. The
triangle control frame is coupled to the wing in a way that is enough
different from that used in most extant hang gliders, that special
training will be needed. The Casellas triangle control has only
a superficial likeness to the triangle control frame observed in a
hang glider (in Breslau) in the first decade of the 1900s (and used
many times thereafter even up to today); the Casellas triangle is part
of a broader system with a distinct coupling dynamic.

The coming Paramontante III will use
lessons learned to date; they are taking steps to shortening lines,
perfecting the mast and Casellas triangle control system, reaching for
fewer flight lines, shorter flight lines, optimization of airfoil and
details. The marriage of the upper low-mass flex-spar parts to the wing will be
perfected. Flight dynamics of a masted and special-flexing-sparred
Paramontante will be explored profoundly.
This rich refining period
is
filled with things to do, prove, flight test. Safety is ever foremost.

The aim to provide a potential new class of hang glider is truly
exciting; the real spectrum of use can only be seen unclearly now.
After Paramontante II extant, there will be III, IV, V, etc. perhaps Va, Vb, Vc, Vd, Ve, Vf .... may we hope and support.
As success and interest grow, our sport will grow a faction of
Paramontante pilots, it is hoped.
Clearly engineering solutions
to safety and design hurdles form a sport in itself. Pere Casellas has shown emphatically
that he has been having great fun in the
sport of hang glider design
(study his full web of files!); and my hats are off for the
perseverance of Juan Salvadori. Discussion is open.
Send notes to them and copy us here at
Editor@UpperWindpower.com for publishing
purposes. Tame the gust effects at low altitude;
gain some points of L/D; then when evolutes are mature, explore tight
packs, and bring in other futurisms.

For now,
support the modern-day pioneering effort of an international
collaborating Paramontante team with your choices of gifts: interest,
analysis, questions, answers, funds, shipped materials, ...
Join your support as you might.
JpF June2, 2009

Consignment servicefor paper issues of old hang
glider periodicals. Owners ship their issues to our
office; we sell the issues via PayPal over the coming years. We send
to you funds less the PayPal transaction fee. Non-profit at our end,
only the pleasure of getting some lift to others. We announce the
price you set. Tell us what you hold of early hang glider newsletters
and magazines. Editor@UpperWindpower.com
Thanks for the synergy from Jack Morgan (had a full build of Icarus V;
who has his wing now?)

Fred Bickford ... collage
coming
of an early memorable flight AND SOME HISTORY. of 68 recorded flights...
From Horizon to SeedWings.

Photos from UK, Eric
and Tony on Pilcher and Otto items are in preparation.

Juan S. note on
passion and fun on simple and available solutions. He has also
spawned revisit to the Valkyrie. Notes from others may bring forward a
Valkyrie discussion. Do you have notes towards this?

Most hang gliding is
fuel-filled hang gliding. Discuss. What is and is not covered by the
various national bodies' insurance policies? Fine print and
interpretations? Send description of coverage:
Editor@UpperWindpower.com

Guido's "Flying Cart"
? Guido Picca of Argentina

Self-kiting launching
with morphable hang glider
.

Posted: Thu, Jun 25
2009, 6:44:31 pm
Subject: Article invitation for LIFT :: PDMC
Rick,
You are invited to let us publish an article by you on PDMC
in LIFT.

"I
would even suggest hang glider pilots consider abandoning organizations
that mix paragliding and hang gliding so as not to be caught up in
potential liability issues that have nothing to do with them. " Rick Masters, June 2009

Others who have
something to say regarding the thesis on PDMC are generally invited to
send articles.

Editorial: The hang gliders we see today have invention roots
in 1800s, 1900s, and 2000s. Flexible-wing battened triangle-control frame
hang glider with hung pilot behind cable-stayed A-frame was fact in the
first decade of the 1900s. Delta-shaped stiffened flex wings were flying
in the first decade of 1900. Fully-limp hang gliders had roots in
Domina Jalbert and Francis Rogallo. Then stiffening on top of the limp
realizations occurred again via deep studies in the 1950s and in 1960,
1961, 1962 with a RETURN to what was decades earlier already invented. The
invention facts are in the historical record of photographs, patents, and
news. Barry Hill Palmer actually hang glided in 7 to 8 of his hang gliders
in first two years of 1960 with respect enough not to claim hang
glider mechanical invention; hats off to Barry Palmer for pioneering
actions in a hang gliding renaissance.

Modern hang gliders then found tweaking mechanical inventions that
continue to be fun and important. Ornamental tweaking of
what was already mechanically invented cannot win fairly global mechanical
invention away from rightful pioneering valid known inventors.

Wear your critical thinking cap when facing
the GH push for unearned mechanical invention claiming. GH is pushing
again for that which belongs to others. JD's idiosyncratic experience is
indeed fun and socially important, but mechanically his mechanicals
resulted in
only that which had already been fully mechanically invented, exposed,
flown, promulgated, published, patented, noted, described, and
professionalized. JD's results exhibited in result only prior mechanical art--no
matter how much he might have been unaware of such prior art; his
position in kiting helped to popularize ski-kiting in Australia, not assumptive
mechanical invention.

Declaration of mechanical invention is a
high standard space that FAI and others are invited to respect with great
effort and careful respect. There is a GH-bulldozer pushing to alter perceptions in a way that
would rob points from the heart of the sport and profession of hang-glider
mechanical inventing.

To attract hang glider mechanical inventors
to our sports: Respect valid global mechanical inventing; make the effort to find the
mechanical inventors; honor the rightful owners of hang glider mechanical
invention. And similarly for ornamental product artists-makers-tinkerers.
But distinguish the two innovation spaces in order to equip oneself to
find and see the mechanical innovators.
JpF, May31, 2009

May 31, 2009
Regarding Rogallo and Dr. Rogallo

John,
(Mr. John LaTorre)
Ever and only I have referred to Francis Rogallo as a "Dr." for the
Rogallo Wing space. Never claimed Ph.D.----that was GH's posting a
straw man to burn. [straw
man: a weak or sham argument set up to be easily refuted]. The credits
in the Rogallo Wing space with over 20 patents and his sturdy
leadership from late 40s through 1960s in teaching others at all levels
about limp and stiffened flexible wings easily won for him by me and
others the "doctor" status of the Rogallo Wing world. It was not just in my mind that
gave such
respect for his leadership space, but many others who came to the same
respect and choose to keep such respect. To honor those who lead and
mend within an industry or movement is a common means to give deserved
status, as you so aptly analyzed; thank you.
=====================Editorial:
The hang gliders we see today have invention roots in 1800s, 1900s, and
2000s. Flexible-wing battened triangle-control frame hang glider with hung
pilot behind cable-stayed A-frame was fact in the first decade of the
1900s. Delta-shaped stiffened flex wings were flying in the first decade
of 1900. Fully-limp hang gliders had roots in Domina Jalbert and Francis
Rogallo. Then stiffening on top of the limp realizations occurred again
via deep studies in the 1950s and in 1960, 1961, 1962 with a RETURN to
what was decades earlier already invented. The invention facts are in the
historical record of photographs, patents, and news. Barry Hill Palmer
actually hang glided in 7 to 8 of his hang gliders in first two years of
1960 with respect enough not to claim hang glider mechanical invention;
hats off to Barry Palmer for pioneering actions in a hang gliding
renaissance.

Modern hang gliders then found tweaking mechanical inventions that
continue to be fun and important. Ornamental tweaking of what was already
mechanically invented cannot win fairly global mechanical invention away
from rightful pioneers.

Wear your critical thinking cap when facing the GH push for unearned
mechanical invention claiming. GH is pushing again for that which belongs
to others. JD's experience is fun and socially important, but mechanically
he resulted in only that which had already been
fully mechanically invented, exposed, flown, promulgated, published,
patented, noted, described, and professionalized. JD's results exhibited
prior mechanical art--no matter how much he might have been unaware of
such prior art; his position in kiting helped popularize kiting in
Australia, not assumptive mechanical invention.

It will be found that nearly only one GH chose to de-honor the Rogallo
"Dr." by pointedly putting up a straw man of "Ph.D." that
academic initial attribution had never been
claimed or used. Rogallo's conferences, speaking, demonstrations,
writings, persuading, etc. even in the 50's on top of his long service to
aeronautics...did seed reuse of the stiffened
flexible wing (echo of earlier decades) and pointed use of fully-limp
parawing Rogallo Wing in aviation and gliding parachuting (subset of
mechanical hang gliding). The people, including Dick Eipper and Dave
Kilbourne, in the community of Self-Soar Association, easily adopted the
honorific for our "Dr." I find no text anywhere that argues to
dethrone him of the honorific "Dr."; I find a lone voice tearing down a
straw man ...for his GH-ulterior purposes of unearned "invention" for a
perfectly fine tinkering ski-kiting young man who furthered local Grafton interest in using the NASA
"paraglider" wing (in those days "paraglider" was the stiffened Rogallo
Wing; later "paraglider" was used for fully-limp gliders) ...without distinguishing
mechanical invention from ornamental-tweaking-appearance invention.
Long live "Dr. Rogallo" (he is still with us). A founder of USHGA extended
officially the honorary "Dr." for Francis Melvin Rogallo, aeronautical
engineer and strongly established inventor of over twenty patents. Though
he did not choose to complete a Ph.D. program at Stanford University, he
did original research and taught other Ph.Ds and engineers and scientists
about both stiffened and limp hung-mass and hung-pilot gliding variants.

If you have interest in some hang glider history point, I'd like to hear
from you to grow the Timeline. Thanks for giving lift to others through your
valued career in sail and service
works in the hang glider universe.

Notice too how specifically in 1971 or 1972 Dr. Rogallo decried how
others were trying to take credit for what he had already taught
{republication of his letter from Low & Slow is on the front page of
HangGliderHistory.com); he was
not an overt text distinguisher between ornamental and hardcore mechanical
patents; he was glad others used what he taught in ornamental alternative
versions like the very many versions in 1960, 1961 and 1962: see the
scores of published images of variations of the theme in the world's
literature for those years. He did not bring out text recognition of
the 1900-1910 stiffenened flexible wing gliders and hang glider (whose
users had not the fully-flexible limp discovery that Rogallo discovered).

ScrapKite
for Renewable Energy
Used HG sails used tents may find a second life making electricity or
pumping water within energy kite systems in the advancing airborne wind
energy (AWE) movement. Here is a monster scrap-tent lifter kite
in Washington, USA, being used just for such purpose at Ilwaco, WA at
KiteLab

[[ How would
you like to fly a hang glider for a couple of
hours at the end of a line moored at a Tipping Boom electrical
generator? Supply energy to charge batteries for use in an
e-HG or e-car or e-cart or e-hut, etc. The line would be common
non-conductive, as the generator is at the base station. ]]

Please donate and ship used paragliders and used
HG sails to KiteLab at Los Angeles to help
the research and development of renewable-energy via energy kite systems
(hang gliders are involved in various ways).
KiteLab
5271
Borland Rd.,
Los
Angeles, CA 90032

Distinguish the Dietch tendon tethering the wing from James Budge's
sail that was hard coupled with the skateboard and also hand-held. Dietch
simply tendon-tethered the wing. Both Dietch in Chacago and Budge in Santa
Monica, California were involved in hang gliding; Budge was photographing
Seagul hang gliders while advancing the sailed skateboard. Jonathan was
designing and flying hang gliders and tendon-tethering sails above his
foot-based skatboard.

Fuel-filled
launch procedure for hang glider flight:Very much of the hang gliding by USHPA members are fuel-filled
experiences; are the fuel-filled hang gliding episodes covered by the
member insusrance?Step 1
Pack glider on automobile ICE device.

Step 2
Drive a bit closer to cliff edge with a pause at the close-to-home
gasoline automobile filling station. Load prime mover with 20 gallons of
gasoline to move the glider in this launch sequence.

Step 3
Move the glider from local digs to very near the edge of the final
steppings to clear air; this part of the launch sequence is 70 miles.

Step 4
Move the glider up to 3,000 ft ASL from the foothills to the upper regions
with the help of the carrying car. Burn gasoline to move my body and
glider on this climb-the-mountain leg of the launch sequence.

Step 5
Wondering when my insurance starts to cover me … I drive ICE launch helper
within 100 ft. of the final launch sector of this launching effort. I take
the glider off the top of the car, assemble the glider, harness up, hang
check, get buddy to check my system also…thank her dearly. I am nearing
the final leg of this extensive fuel-filled launch procedure.

Step 7
Clear! And my fuel-filled launch procedure is nearing its completion. I am
feeling like I am a fuel-filled launcher; I gained the potential energy
for the final entry to flight by spending lots of fuel.

Does this fuel-filled launch
procedure tempt being unadjusted to altitude, tempt being unwarmed up
physically for flying, spell non-coverage by a "fuel-less" org insurance
policy in case my flight injures non-member persons or property? What are
other launch procedures that would be less fuel-filled? What is the fuel
footprint of each particular flight?

3. Do an Otto when living on
Flatland: Gather matters into a launch hill; walk up the hill, ready wing
and all; launch and fly. Hug the kids. Dine. Love. Sleep. Repeat. Vol
libre; probably covered by org insurance …

5. Extend a Bill-Moyes initiated method
on Flatland: Foot-launch self-kite morphable hang glider in mild breeze;
morph to lower sail area as needed as altitude is gained. At altitude
either fetch all tether and mooring hardware into hang glider or drop the
line for use by next club member or repeat later launch. No fuel here.
[Bill anchored his kite in a stiff breeze; he launched a couple of feet
off the ground; he did not release in his first experiments. Later in
Torrance, he fuel-less kited and then released the tether to do some
soaring. This was all in contrast to earlier dependence on fueled tow
boats for fueled aqua-kiting.]

RPA ... releasable power assembly. Hang
glider pilot takes off with a RPA and then releases the RPA to do free
flight gliding disciplines. The RPA returns to launch site and is then
used by other pilots.

There are various ways to couple RPAs with a hang
glider or paraglider for launch assistance. Guido Picca is forwarding an
interesting direction. LIFT's translation of his note ...at his
permission (welcome corrections by anyone during the coming days and
weeks):

Hello LIFT,

Here is what I am developing: Flying Dolly,
A radio-controlled aircraft (RCA) equipped with a
propelling unit and
landing gear, capable of
carrying a hang glider to an altitude appropriate for releasing
the RCA to allow hang gliding free flight. The RCA would be guided
and landed by a
land-based RC operator.

The direction of hardware design that I am taking appears as a winged
"flying dolly" which is equipped with radio and engine or motor [ICE
or electric]. Hang gliding off the assembly upon release of the RPA
RCA begins free flight and gliding disciplines. The RPA
RCA returns to the ground for another hang glider pilot to use.

There is a growing spread in the use of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles).
UAVs are replacing many manned aircraft in special applications.

This RPA RCA is designed as an alternative to aerotowing (AT) by
manned aircraft:

1. Lower operating cost compared to using a manned AT
tug.

2. Lower cost of manufacturing compared to AT.

3. Motor or engine of 20 hp.

4. Easier to hangar.

5. Can be carried on the roof of any car.

6. The mechanicals can be altered to serve hang gliders
and paragliders.

8. After a worldwide search, we found no
similar device; for this
reason and to protect the invention, we
have applied for patent
protection.

I made a prototype that flew coupled with hang glider
and free radio. The flights were promising.

It is necessary to refine the prototype to a production model that is
manufactured and marketed. Therefore, I am now looking for people
interested in getting professionally involved to forward this project.

Powering assembly is released from the flying system upon
reaching desired altitude; the powering assembly is remotely controlled by
club ground crew for a flight back to the club launching site. Theses systems
fixe free-flight without the mass cost after release. This category ushers the
potential of a club reaching for exotic expensive power units that are shared
by many pilots in a club flight session.

Hard-cabled until released. Power arrives to the glider motor a cable
(from ground or aircraft or kite or balloon).

Power-beamed

Pilot-power assisted

BowHG
Collaborative is advancing on bow hang gliders.

WoopyWing Evolutes keep
occurring.

Xwinging
Omega Hang Gliders is advancing

LTAHG
Lighter-than-air hang gliders

GSHG
Graphened dominated hang gliders

OMK
Self-kited morphers

SolidHG
Super-sparse 3-D network beyond aerogel as well as aerogel. Also foam forms.

Tandem up in power-assist. Separate the two pilots; one
continues with the bare hang glider; the other glides back down to club launch
site with the power-assist hardware: So, I see in the flash idea
that perhaps we could side-step the unmanned RC flying dolly by starting out the
flight with two persons in the power-assisted arrangement. The tandem launch
with the flying cart or tug dolly would climb to desired altitude. Then the
flying dolly with one pilot would detach with all hardware related to the
power-assist. The released part and pilot need not use fuel or electric power;
the released flying dolly and pilot would glide to the flatland launch area
where the same flying-dolly pilot could attach to the next club member's rig.
The other pilot will have his or her hang glider to practice gliding/soaring
disciplines from the release/separation point forward. This system will not be
using RC, will not be using a tug Dragonfly aircraft, and will not be having any
lose uninhabited air vehicle in the airspace. All parts will be under human
direct pilot control at all times. The released pilot and flying dolly is a
subsystem that could take many forms; one form might involve intended use of a
gliding parachute; another form could be morphable extended wings.
Surely we are not at the end of
this thread. I invited the thread followers to look at last year's thread in FLPHG group where ideas
close to this thread's subject were covered. That invitation is still up. The
acronym of RPA was formed for "releasable power assembly." During that
FLPHG thread, the tandem flash idea did not arrive.
Cheers,
JoeF
PS: edit later: The released pilot that returns
with the flying cart might be the least-weighted member of the club. We might
pay the dolly pilot for his time and effort. However, a tiny pilot might really
enjoy the tandem flight up and the solo flight return with the flying dolly or
tugdolly.

June 26, 2009

4. Modified PG? Several directions interest
me:
A. Reefable and busable airbeam-tensairitied-boned PG. The interior of the
advanced airbeams would use reefable parts and sub-bladders following some
recent airbeam patent instructions.
B. Paramontante direction
C. Graphened and PVed with captured ram-air followed with high-pressure
maintenance …and smart-pressure maintenance; this would also have some spanwise
and chordwise boning that would not bother busability.
JpF